I'd Far Rather Be Happy
by MiaMeadows
Summary: Picking up where 'And Another Thing...' left off, will the Vogan ships destroy Arthur Dent or will he live to whine and love again?
1. Concerning cheese and farm animals

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (it belongs to Megadodo Publications) and I don't own Arthur or Fenchurch either. Mate. **

Arthur sat with his head in his hands. This was it. This was surely the end of all things. He had used up the last of his nine lives about six near-death-experiences ago and was now living off the very improbability of his existence… and a disgusting, old, bath towel.

The Vogan ship was hovering above the clouds in the most ominous of fashions and Arthur found suddenly that he was holding a fish bowl. What good a fish bowl would be in a situation such as this was quite beyond him but he clutched it to his chest as if it were the last turnip of the season.

Arthur stared at the Vogan ship that spelled his doom and wondered suddenly if it didn't somewhat resemble a giant wheel of cheese and as that wheel of cheese began to spin he felt certain that it looked even more like a cocktail umbrella in a vodka sunrise. Arthur rolled his eyes, lay down onto his side, and pretended it wasn't there.

The Heart of Gold was feeling tip top and ship shape, with the improbability drive working much better than clockwork again, everything was just peachy. The Heart of Gold kindly offered to give dear Arthur Dent a lift and when he pretended not to notice it had a few robots escort him aboard, kicking and screaming and scratching and biting, with the fish bowl clasped firmly in both hands.

He found himself sitting on the floor in the cabin of the Heart of Gold and wondering why he hadn't been blown to bits. Though, Arthur was usually wondering why he hadn't been blown to bits, in fact, he spent a good deal of his life on this particular subject so he felt quite comfortable and at home there on the floor and would have been quite happy to remain there had someone not poked at him with their foot.

"Old mate Arthur," the person attached to the foot said, "you're one lucky guy you know that?"

Arthur did not know that, in fact he was fairly sure he was, just about, the unluckiest man in the universe. He had finally been reunited with the love of his nine lives only to have her whisked away from him and gone to who knows where. *

Arthur didn't respond to the voice at the other end of the foot. He hoped that whoever it was would go away and leave him and his fish bowl alone for a little while. But the foot persisted until he realised that it belonged to a leg and the leg belonged to Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Zaphod Beeblebrox was eating a piece of fudge. He was also wondering what Arthur Dent was doing on his ship again when all he ever wanted to do was throw him off it. But there he was, looking a little classier than usual but, still there, all up in his grill.

Arthur wasn't at all in the mood for small talk. He was trying to see if the fish bowl would fit over his head so that he could wear it like a diver's helmet. He was also beginning to think that whoever the fool was who said "it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" had not considered that it was probably better, in all circumstances, to just be asleep.

So Arthur curled up into a ball with the fish bowl in his arms (unfortunately, it had not fit over his head) and tried to dream of Fenchurch's lovely face.

"Oh for Thor's sake," said Zaphod, "Arthur pull yourself together!"

Zaphod gave him a good kick, in a place I won't mention, and Arthur finally found the gall to stand up and face whatever life had to chuck at his face now.

"Oh hello friend" Arthur said, "How are you?"

"Forget that Arthur, listen, I am having a bit of a party here and, well, you have always been a bit of a downer you know."

Arthur looked about him for the first time and realised that he was surrounded by ladies in high heels and cocktail dresses and a few nervous looking men holding drinks and handbags.

"So listen, could you make yourself scare for the next couple of days. You can have your old room back."

Arthur liked the sound of that, he was never one for parties, they never seemed to work out well for him.

"Well, I could stay for a drink," said Arthur, for who knows what reason, "I can party when occasion calls for it."

All four of Zaphod's eyes rolled.

"Well suit yourself," he said, becoming quite distracted by a girl in green tights. Oh, nope, just green legs they are.

So Arthur poured himself a drink, drank it, nearly threw up, and poured another.

Then he found a seat next to some sort of giant bumblebee and talked to him about the invaluable source of warmth a pair of legwarmers could be old a cold day.

The bumblebee was not interested and made an excuse to leave which was something along the lines of "I have to be somewhere that isn't anywhere near you now."

So Arthur filled his fish bowl with all the different kinds of alcohol he could find, ripped his shirt off and announced to the entire room that he would be drinking the entire contents of his fish bowl and asked if anyone would care to watch.

They did.

In fact, it was probably one of the most interesting things they had seen all day. And Arthur found for the first time in his life that he was popular. Well, at least, he was, until he passed out. Then he was still popular, but only because they took photos of him in compromising positions with various different farm animals.

When Arthur woke up there was a giant alien standing on his head.

*Luckily, reader, I know where. Fenchurch was currently sitting next to a pile of watermelons at a school fete and she was chewing on a plastic bendy-straw.


	2. Concerning jelly and a soup tureen

Fenchurch was lying in her bed alone. She was listening to the sound of her gold fish blowing bubbles, in the fish bowl, on her bedside table. She was lonely. That was obvious. If she wasn't lonely she would have been out with her friends at the pub or still with her sister's kids trying to get the paint off their faces after the school fete. But no. She was lying in bed, in her pyjamas, at four in the afternoon.

The house was spotless. Pristine. She had been promoted twice in the past month. She had volunteered at the homeless shelter giving out bowls of soup. And yet there still seemed to be all this empty time. It was everywhere. An hour here, a couple of hours there. And it was in these empty pockets of time that Fenchurch thought about Arthur.

Fenchurch sighed and turned over. Maybe she should just try to forget about him. When someone is whisked away from you in your first ever hyperspace jump you should just face the fact that you will never see them again. Even if you go straight home again and wait on the doorstep for him to return and find you there. Especially since you lost your house key and he has the spare. But eventually you have to knock on your neighbour's door and ask them to call a locksmith for you. And then you have to go back to your old job and your old friends and think about what you possibly did with all this empty time before you had a boyfriend.

Fenchurch got up, put the kettle on, brushed her hair, put some make up on and sat down at the kitchen table with the newspaper. She read it twice, checked the clock again, saw it had only been five minutes, drank a green tea in one go, got dressed and went out.

When Arthur managed to open his eyes he realised there was actually nothing on his head at all. It just felt that way. He also realised that he was no longer in the middle of the dance floor, which was the last place he remembered being, he was actually lying under the control panels of the ship.

So he got up, sat down again very quickly and decided that there was no shame in crawling if he could only find where all his clothes had got to.

His shirt was in a bucket full of jelly, his trousers under a very heavy young lady and his underpants in the punch bowl.

When he was dressed again he decided to have a word with the ship.

"Ship!" he yelled at the air in front of his face.

"Yes Arthur," the ship replied.

"Where are we headed?"

"Nowhere at the moment, we have been floating in the same spot for about three months. To be honest I am getting very bored of this party. You lot are making a terrible mess in here."

"Do you think, you could maybe, drop me off on Earth?"

"Which one?"

"The rebuilt version."

"Sure, why not."

The ship took off so suddenly that, had Arthur not already been on the floor, he would have fallen over. Most of the other people on board did, in fact, fall over. Aliens were crashing into things all over the place.

But Arthur didn't notice, all he could see was the blue sphere that was his home and he shed a wee tear.

"London if you don't mind, Fenchurch Station if possible," he said and another wee tear followed the first on a journey down Arthur's face.

"Ship!" that was Zaphod, "where in the name of Thor are you taking us?"

The ship was very excited.

"We're zooming! I've never felt more alive!" said the Ship.

"Stop! What planet is that? Oh zark, is that what I think it is?"

"Earth here we come!" yelled the ship.

"Arthur, I can only guess that this was your doing?"

"You can just drop me off there then you can get back to your party."

"Yes but we were in the most fashionable spot in the galaxy back there! Someone else will certainly have stolen our spot by now."

"Well I am sorry but you might as well drop me off now that we're here."

Zaphod gave Arthur a good kick.

Then he gave him another straight out the door.

The Heart of Gold would have waved goodbye if it had arms.

Arthur found himself standing outside Fenchurch Station with a crowd of very puzzled onlookers starting at him. He wasn't sure if it was because he had just been literally kicked out of a spaceship or if it was because his pants were covered in jelly.

So Arthur was back in London. He had no money, no job, only one set of clothes and no girlfriend. So, instead of doing the sensible thing and trying to contact one of his old friends or relatives he decided, instead, to sleep on the tube and eat what he could find in rubbish bins and read the papers he found on the seats.

His beard grew back, his pants got a lot of things stuck to them and his shirt got a lot of holes in it.

I can't tell you that he was particularly happy, but he had certainly been equally miserable before.

Fenchurch was ladling soup into an old lady's bowl at the homeless shelter. She was not doing very well in her attempt to get over Arthur. So far she had thought of him 42 times since she decided not to think about him anymore.

Then, as she looked up to see who the next person in the line was she saw the most ridiculous looking homeless man she had ever seen in her life. He was filthy, more so than usual, had more hair on his face than she was quite used to, smelt worse than most of the homeless people in the room put together and had what looked like the entire contents of a rubbish bin attached to his pants.

She put the soup into his bowl and gave him a smile. She always liked to give them a smile.

He looked up at her to say thank you and he dropped the bowl. Right on his foot too.

"Fenchurch?"

"I'm sorry sir, do I know you?"

"You don't remember me do you? I knew this would happen."

"I'm sorry sir but I don't…"

Fenchurch stopped. The man was staring intently at her face and she looked straight in to his eyes.

"It can't be," she said, shaking her head, "Arthur?"

Arthur burst into tears.

Fenchurch leapt over the table and the soup tureen and wrapped Arthur in her arms. She didn't even mind the smell.

"I found you," he said as he wept into her shoulder.

"And, just to be safe," said Fenchurch, "let's not leave Earth ever again yeah?"

"Ok."

And they didn't.


End file.
